Tallahassee's Job Market..Where Is It?

Sheri Chance of Crawfordville wrote an interesting letter to the Tallahassee Democrat, which was published today. Her husband is in the military. She writes that even though she has lived in the area since July (of 2006) she cannot find a job. She's asking, where is the support for military families?

She's not alone. And, the problem is not just relegated to military families. I know many folks around town that could tell similar stories. People in my own family and even I have run into the tough job market of Tallahassee, Florida.

A family friend currently works for a company in Arkansas. He lives here, but has to either drive or fly to various destinations several times a month to job sites. His pay is good, but the trade-off is..limited time with his daughter; no way to plan in advance, since he never knows what the next destination is; and now the company has had some layoffs, so there's no security with the company either. He's looking, but says he's found very little here that can compare
with his present salary.

My wife, Marianne, received her college degree in August of 2006, after five years of plugging away at her studies, and often making the dean's list. She's still working at Chaires Afterschool program and has had almost no real "bites" related to her degree. I blogged recently about
college degrees recently. I still think they are overrated, at least in Tallahassee.

My last full-time radio gig paid me a whopping $8 per hour. That pay was for being on-air
7 hours a day, 5 days per week, doing sales (no commissions), running errands to the bank and to pay the light bill, handling all the station traffic and program logs, and handling public relations and community liaison issues. That $8 was my top pay even after years with the company, working like a Trojan to keep the station broadcasting and making money.

I've also worked as a clerk for the state. They offered health insurance and benefits. The pay there was a salary but worked out to about $7 per hour.

In 2004, I opted to retire and just forget about the traditional "making a living working for an employer" rut. The pay wasn't that much less to get rid of the headaches!

But to stay on track here..a lot of folks work for the government, the universities or the community college. I don't know what other folks do to maintain all these homes that are constantly being built. I barely was able to buy my mobile home, which was about $30k
in 1989. It took some help from the family to do it.

I've lived in Tallahassee for almost all of my life..and I still don't know where the job market is!

I wish Sheri Chance every success at finding something, but I'm not holding my breath.